PTR:Daves '09 roadtrip:WoF,SDC,6FSL,HW,BB,KK,KI,IB,GAm,Dells

[davidm]

OK; its that time of the year again; I get a bit bored and go off
somewhere random to play on their local toys.

So this morning I got up, went to this airport;

Got on a plane, ended up at this airport;

Hopped on one of these planes;

and ended up at at another airport.

Rental car, bit lost (had not sussed (or in fact turned on) the SatNav)
and get to a hotel after a slight slight scenic detour.

Nice room;

But a nicer view I think!

More to come tomorrow when I plan to get to cross the other side of that road!

But for now, I shall sleep!

;-)

 

[davidm]

Not even close to Florida! ;-)

 

[SFMMMan]

Have fun at Worlds of Fun. :wink:

 

[Snoo]

Come visit me, if you go by Waldameer.

 

[davidm]

So yes, its starting out here;

Where will I end up... time will tell!

(although its not going to be Waldameer I'm afraid Snoo :-( )

Was inspired to pay this place a visit, mainly because of the new woody but also because
I never hear much about it and it seemed to have a few coasters that I tend to like (B&M
inverts and big hyper types).

So managed to negotiate walking along the highway and grass verge to get to the park
from the hotel (Americans don't half make it tricky walking anywhere, no wonder that they are
all **insert trite overweight-American quip here**).

Park was pretty quiet all day, wandered first off to see Prowler for a couple of stress
free first rides of the day;

Very good indeed this. Great first drop and then into heap of speed, no more big hills
but lots of little dips and rises and banks and speed and stuff. Really good ride.
Very hard to photograph though (a common theme with the day) as you can't really see
much of it from the park unless you are riding it! The park railroad gave a few views
as well tho';

The drop, no train available at the time tho' :-(

Next up (purely for the credit) was the boomer. I really dont like boomers. I recall the
first one I went on I really enjoyed.... how times change. Anyway they are always quite
photogenic though;

Then up to that big ride I could see from the hotel, Mamba the nice big hyper.

I like nice big hypers. I like the big Morgans (SD2000, Steel Force, Steel Eel) and I
liked this too. Not anything like as impressive as SD2000, but hey its still pretty
nice although I think out of that list above they would all edge Mamba for some reason
or another.

Continuing the loop of the park, I happened upon Detonator, which was a proper S&S job,
unlike the Thorpe ride of the same name. These are always fun.

Next up was the old woody (20 this year) - Timber Wolf. This was not good. 20 is clearly
not a good age for a wooden coaster. Not the roughest old wood I've been on (I think
Predator at Darian Lake might win that), but still far too much rattling and rough riding
for my likeing. (No pix either!)

Now this is more like it, the B&M Patriot. Almost very good - probably an element short
of that, but the good old B&m formula (Loop, ZeroG, Immelmann, banked turn, airtime hop,
wingover,twisty bit, finish) does the trick. Good stuff.

Last coaster (since I didn't lower myself to the Wacky Worm!) was the Spinning Dragons
which was installed as the replacement to the old signature ride Orient Express...

...well I think the punters were somewhat short changed as this was not great!

OK I suppose, but a bit of a filler!

Overall a pretty nice place - kinda Busch Gardens Williamsburg-Lite.

A lot of the flats are showing their age a bit I think, and theres a bit of repetition
in their styles. The coasters are a fair selection though, enough to keep me entertained
for most of the day.

More later then...


.
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.
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Oh yes, by the way, don't go in this building; its a trap.

---


NB all the pictures are all quickly processed and resized so I expect when I get home the
quality will improve somewhat - this netbook's 8-inch screen doesn't help (but it is rather
fantastic for general travel-connectivity tho')

 

[davidm]

No parks today :-(

Drive down from KC to the next port of call, which will not suprise you to
know is Branson.

Another day, a new hotel, this time with a balcony (pool doesn't look
too clever though!)

What an odd place this is. If I was feeling un-generous I'd describe it as a
hillbilly Vegas... I've not quite been here long enough to hate it yet, give it another
24 hours and I might well do.

Theres a "main drag" through all the motels/hotels/food places, but most of all there
are theatres EVERYWHERE, all putting on shows from people I've never heard of (I suspect
I'm NOT the target audience tho') and like they are top-billing on Broadway....( Blackpool
pier summer show more like).

I am being very uncharitable here though, whatever floats your boat really...

Speaking of boats, the Titanic attempts to cross the main drag at one point

Not the Titanic (not a good picture either!)

At the end of the strip is Celebration City. This would have been a good place to kill
a few hours instead of being disparaging about the town; but as you well know the place
is shut at the moment.

This ride will not operate today;

Shame, this looked pretty good;

More SBNO;

Went for an explore, there is a rather nice lake a couple of miles out of town
which I did enjoy pottering around taking a few pix thereof;

Nice lake;

A tree at the nice lake;

The lack of coaster action today means you now get a picture of the hire car.

No prizes for guessing what tomorrow brings then!


More to come...

 

[davidm]

Its Tuesday, I'm in Branson ::shudder:: that means it must be Silver Dollar City day

Nice place, one of the few places that peeps seem to go to just to go to it - so kinda like
Disney and Universal at a push, there is just loads of peeps there just to be there. Am I
making sense? The place was full of OAPs, just wandering around (slowly, and its pretty
hilly in places, not so easy on the age-challenged). There are loads of shows and shoppes
and olde-west type stuff going on that the non-riding public could enjoy.

Anyway I certainly don't fit into that category, I wasn't there for the country nor the
western music... the olde-worlde-west shoppes held little interest... I can find cheaper
($50 entrance!) ways of wasting a few hours in the heat... but I was there for the coasters!

First up was the B&M looper Wildfire. Deceptively hard to find (the whole park is a little
hard to navigate to be honest) and interestingly located on the side of a hill, I was
looking forward to this!

Here they go;

Lifty hill

Upsidey down

Some idea of the view from up here, rather splendid

Certainly the location of this ride is excellent, top of a hill looking
down into the valley and lake below. The ride is pretty darned good also,
big drop into an immelmann, loop, big cobra roll, corkscrew, little helix
thats the lot. What it does have is really good, but a bit like Patriot
the other day, feels kinda "an element short". I liked it though lots,
definatley worthy!

Just next door (well down the hill a bit) is Powder Keg, the rebuilt ride.
I'm going to have to dig out a Buzzsaw Falls POV that I have at home to see
how much of the old ride is left.

Again I liked this a lot. Really odd setup where as soon as you leave the
station you move sideways (the whole track moves, like a transfer track)
up to the launch straight. The launch is good, not stupid fast but fast enough
and there is plenty of airtime over the top hat and the first hill - nice.

Themeing - oh look its crashed ;-)

Thereafter its gets all fast and swoopy and ends up with a conventional lift
hill and drop right at the end (odd in itself, but not unique to this park -
see later).

Nearby is an old "classic" (ie "rubbish") coaster Fire in the Hole - basically
a cheesy dark ride with a couple of drops in it. Not great.

The other serious coaster (there is a kiddy one as well) is an Arrow minetrain
type called Thunderation, and that was pretty fun too - 2 cars face backwards
which is an odd sensation on this sort of ride - no pics of this though as it
is out in the woods somewhat!

They have a themed S&S swing - themed like a giant barn!

Self powered Giant Drop?

And the usual smattering of other rides

But what they do have which is pretty non-usual is the reason that the park
is where it is in the first place - a giant underground cave system that
you can go on an hour's trek through - pretty groovy, and not for those
with vertigo as you start out at the top of a huge cavern;

I tried to take some shots in the trek but suspect they may not come out
very well.

Overall a good place, they could do with a better mascot though;

More later (where tomorrow? Hmmmm)...

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

Must be nice to be able to just get up and go wherever once every year like you said you do! Kind of an interesting choice of destination though, certainly not really parks that I would choose but hey, to each his own!

Worlds of Fun actually looks like an underrated park kind of, as it looks decent, but isn't really spoken of, probably due to the location or something.

Silver Dollar City looks like it has a really nice atmosphere though, and I always forget about Wildfire, which looks pretty sweet.

I'll be keepin' an eye on this topic!

 

[Uncle Arly]

Nice one Dave. Silver Dollar city looks great. Wildfire seems to be underrated. The location it sits in and the ride seems to be good, why is it not rated any higher?

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

^ Probably due to the location, not a lot of people go there, so that is why it's rated lower than most.

 

[Uncle Arly]

But, rides like Eagle Fortress that are in a country that isn't accessible to that many enthusiasts gets rated really highly.

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

^ Wasn't there a TPR trip to Japan though?

 

[Dave]

Its in Korea Wildfire is under-rated as I think its over-shadowed a bit by other bigger B&M's in the US.

 

[Brookes]

Brilliant report so far, I am really enjoying all the trip reports at the moment. Prowler, Wildfire and Patriot look like brilliant rides and I would love to ride them. I can't wait until I'm old enough to just go on trips like these and go on loads of great coasters. Can't wait for more.

 

[davidm]

Minor update : its been chucking it down all morning on my drive up to St Louis from Branson, so I'm going to postpone the Six Flags trip 'till tomorrow (I have the capacity in my schedule) when the weather is meant to be nicer.

But this will make you laugh; I'm supposed to be the smart one, yet it turns out I booked a hotel in the wrong "Fenton", so I have pre-paid for a room tonight in Michigan rather than Missouri. So now I'm checked into a different hotel in Fenton (St Louis) at additional cost to myself. Fool that I am!

D'oh! :-(

 

[davidm]

So after yesterday's bad weather imposed delay (I went off to the flicks instead
and saw that Terminator film - "meh"), it was off to Six Flags over Mid-America
for me (I do prefer that name somehow?).

I've been here before, back in 2003 (indeed you can see the evidence of that visit
on the Coasterforce park guide page), but they have kindly added a couple of new
coasters since then, so it was worth a looksee. And to be fair, the time I
went here before I really enjoyed the place so was well up for a revisit.

First up was their new (to me) GCI woody "Evel Knievel". Not quite as
imposing as WoF's Prowler, but still pretty sweet. Was a really good ride,
smooth, fast, floaty, twisty, excellent! Them GCI guys are really getting
into the swing of this coaster malarky!

Evel

Knievel

I did notice these signs all over the place as well... a reaction to that
stupid Georgia incident from last year? These signs were every few yards
on a lot of the fences around the place.

Electric Six (Flags)?

Next up was the other new (to me) ride - quick digression; how many other
coasters are named after real people rather than superheroes or film
tie-ins? And here I am going on two consecutively, bizarre.

Tony Hart's big drawing

This was a bit "meh" though, better than the similar Spinning Dragons at
WoF, but nothing too great.

The big woody here is The Boss, which I remember being a bit evil (but fun),
today it was still a bit evil but running well - one of the better "big
woods" I think.

T'Boss

Their drop ride is new-ish to trhe park, but not new to me since I rode it
when it was in Houston, themed to Olde-England there, Superman here.

ex-Astroworld

Also on the menu is a nasty old Arrow looper, which I think has one of the
best head-choppers going; when you twist underneath the chain return bit
about halfway through the ride, gets me every time!

Ninja

When you ride all these coasters, its always good to take a moment to
realize how utterly brilliant the original B&M invert is. Revolutionary
at the time and stands the test of time fantastically. St Louis's is odd
in that it is a mirror image of all the other clones, but still an
excellent ride; far superior to many that have come afterwards.

ediR ehT:namtaB

The last coaster I rode for the day (also rode the mine train ("meh") and
the old woody Screamin Eagle which hurt me badly 6 years ago, but I
made it through OK today) was Mr Freeze. I do like Mr Freeze's, I recall
riding Texas's in the dark once and that was wonderful being launched straight
up into the stars. No stars today though (bright sunshine) but still a
great ride.

Mr Freeze

Rest of the day spent pottering around the park;

Colossus

Park

Final "best buy" tip - if you are Brit, and off to these places on holidays
then try to get an "out of market" season pass (you'll have to ask for one)
as these are HUGE discounts - $45 for a Six Flags pass that will get me into
any other SF parks I may encounter in the next few days, and just because
I'm foreign-like! Cool!

---

So all in all; really good.

The park was clean, employees (in their bright new day-glo uniform) were
generally good, and despite the park not being busy they were running 2
trains on all the rides even with mininal lines - well done Mr Flags.

This is a really good park which (to me) just doesn't get the credit
some of its (slightly) bigger brothers get. This place was the third Six
Flags park (after Texas and Georgia) and was purpose built as such. Its not
quite as big as those two (or the other big Six flags "purchased parks")
but still very worthy! Me like.


And just some messing about on the way out

More later...

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

Hmm, SFStL is one of those parks you just don't hear about much, yet the atmosphere and coaster lineup looks quite nice. Glad to hear Evel was good though, and that the rest of the rides were pretty sweet as well. Always thought Mr. Freeze looked bomb, too!

 

[furie]

Excellent! Great to see somewhere slightly different, and reviews of a new coaster too! Excellent Dave

 

[ECG]

Great report Dave! If you don't mind, I think I'll be following in your footsteps later this summer. :wink:

 

[davidm]

^ cool, but remember that I have warned you about Branson - yeehah!

---


Another day, another park Well actually two, but more of that later...

I'd stayed about 40 miles away from the next place since the next place
is in the middle of nowhere, Indiana... yes its Holiday World today!

When I got to the (free) car park, it was the easily the busiest one I'd
seen yet on the trip, clearly family-friendly parks in the middle of
nowhere Indiana are popular - the park itself was also the busiest I'd
seen so far this week.

I'd been here before in 2003, but since then they had gone and built a new
monster of a ride, so first up it was a brisk walk down the hill to the
rather imposing Voyage.

Clearly this ride has been lauded by the coaster-geek community, but that
isn't always a good sign (take Raven for example, coaster-geeks love it, to
me its "ok", a bit "so what" in fact) so I wasn't quite sure what I'd think
of it... well it was bloomin' FANTASTIC!

Big scary lift hill - check. Lots of airtime hills - check. Lots of
suprises - check. Lots of speed - check. Not too rough - check(ish).

This is a truly amazing ride, loads of air, loads of tunnels, drops in the
tunnel, and the most amazing thing to me was that it just gets faster and
faster. The end third of the ride is truly scary stuff, racing back into
the station complex picking up speed all the time when any sensible coaster
is griding to a halt. Utterly utterly impressive. Loved it.

Downsides - you can't take many pictures of it as most of the ride is off
in the woods and its a shame its a hybrid structure and not "all wood", but
I'm quibbling a bit here. ;-)

---

Now it takes a special moment for me to start to do water rides - it has to
be hot and they have to look good... now HW had gone and built a new "worlds
tallest", so I had resigned myself to having to give this a go...

But it seems HW have other ideas...

(so those going here next week for the US-Live may want to check the status
beforehand?)

Anyway, not sure I missed much, it looked a bit weedy in the shadow of the
mightly Voyage next door - didn't look much "worlds tallest" to me, I'm sure
a few normal splash rides are that big, and how about things like the Mack
supersplash? But who am I to question park marketing? ;-)

Other "worlds tallest" at HW include their shot tower;

And other coasters are the aforementioned Raven

Which is good, just not fantastic like you are lead to believe (and too
short and they were only running 1 train, slowly).

and the Legend (which I prefer to the Raven anyway)

Its a popular place this, loads of family groups - queue patterns are weird
here as well, I waited probably 30 minutes for the Raven in the morning,
but an hour later it was almost walk on (same for the Legend).

Nice enough place, but a bit limited in its offerings (since I don't do the
water park).

So after a few rides on all the wooden beasts the park doesn't really hold
much else for me...


So hop in the car, drive 2 hours, make it to the next place for twilight
(half price) admission and here I am at Beech Bend!

There is clearly only one good reason to come here (if you are not a local
as it did seem like a good enough place just to "hang out" at) and that
reason is another GCI masterpiece, the Kentucky Rumbler.

Not quite as excellent as Prowler was and maybe slightly behind EvelK but
still an excellent ride indeed.

An interesting thing about it was that the station is buried right in the
middle of the ride, so waiting for the train (there is only one) to come
around you get three station fly-pasts, wonderful stuff.

But the park is so quiet, that I only every get to stand and wait for the
train once!

The rest of the park is a bit dull to be honest - its really a whole lot
of travelling rides plonked down on some tarmac. But so what, nice
enough atmosphere, the staff were all pretty friendly, the place is clean
and it is cheap!

They also have one of those common spinning Wild Mouse rides;

And a truly evil looking Pinfari looper;

(and a Dragon kiddly coaster (which was a bit rough (oops let slip that I
rode it, never mind (+1))))

So by no means a full day park, I laboured to spend 2 hours there, but it
was empty so eveything was walk-on. I had originally planned to go here
tomorrow (Saturday) when it might be busier I guess...

So now I'm running ahead of my schedule.... hmmmm.

More later...